Journal of The BatGirl
by I-am-The-Mathgoth
Summary: Hailey returns as the Neighbor from 779, journaling her account with Nny in the second part to my series. Last Chapter of part 2 is Up, along with some fun extras. Like a DVD bonus feature, only not.
1. Welcome to the Dark Side

**Part II - The Third Journal**

_(The official themes to this storyare "Nothing Else Matters" and "Unforgiven" by Metallica. Not because the lyricshave something to do with it, but because they play on repeat whenever I sit down to write a chapter. If you can get the Unforgiven remix by DJ Trashy too...that would complete the set. Enjoy:))_

**Thursday** (9:47 pm) - I'm writing this at the station. I hitched a ride out here about an hour ago and have another 40 minutes before my train arrives. I'm sitting one of those rows of plastic chairs right now, next to this creepy guy who keeps trying to sneak a peek over my shoulder.

Last night was pretty damn anticlimactic. I simply walked out. He didn't really LOCK the door per say, more like slid a very rusty bolt in place that was easy to smash through. It took over an hour and I'm sure I twisted my ankle but hey...it was worth it.

Johnny wasn't home when I made it upstairs. Or was home but hiding someplace. I walked out the front door with my backpack and went home.

It was ransacked. The front door was broken in and lying on the floor, my living room was trashed, unpacked boxes were lying on the floor with half their contents thrown around...my television was ON go figure. My phone line was cut so I didn't bother calling the police. I didn't want to anyway. It was a weird thing, you know? Like how Clarice knew that Hannibal wouldn't try and kill her after he escaped from prison. I knew Johnny wouldn't REALLY come after me...I grabbed some clothes, all the cash I had on hand (he left my room alone for some reason) and simply...went away.

Which is how I ended up HERE. Next to a homeless guy. Who is now leaning in farther than he should. He stinks.

**Saturday** (4:12 am) - So yesterday was a mess. Let me try to reconstruct:

Mr. Homeless was also a pervert. I don't know how it happened but he tried to pull a sneaky touchy-feely trick on me and next thing I knew, I was trying to slap his hand away from under my t-shirt. No one else was around to see this or help me, so I began freaking out. He grabbed for my shirt with both hands and ALMOST knocks me down. I'm leaning against the wall trying to pry his fingers off me. I'm getting really angry. Suddenly, before I know it, I had buried my purple ink pen into his eye socket and he was off me, writhing around on the filthy floor screaming. I felt the warm blood gush down my wrist and drip off my elbow.

While I'm screaming, I feel a vice clamp around my waist and lift me clear off my feet. I start kicking but I hear a familiar voice hissing at me to "quit it". Johnny drags me away from the screaming homeless guy and down the corridor.

People started appearing (where were they when I was getting molested, huh!). I saw flashes at this point, really. People shouting...Johnny raising a boot and kicking this poor obese woman in the gut, her keeling over...my ribs were still tender and his was really starting to hurt them. We somehow made it outside, where even more people were running by us. Not one of them slowed down to ask us what we were doing, or why I was being dragged bloody out of the station.

He pulled me crying into his car and shut the doors. There we sat for a good 30 seconds while I tired to slow my breathing (I was hyperventilating). When I didn't calm down after that, he back handed me pretty good.

"Shut up," he said angrily, "you fucked up, just shut up already."

"Oh god," I was sobbing, "I think I killed him!" I buried my face in my hands.

"You didn't kill him," Johnny said, speaking as though I has just said the stupidest thing in the world, "you blinded him sure but did you see all those people? They just LOVE it when something like this happens, it brings them all closer together," he turned the key and the car sputtered to life, "or some sick shit like that. He's going to live at least," I didn't even notice that we were headed back to his house until he stopped abruptly in the garage.

"Get out," he commanded, sweeping a hand through his hair again.

I climbed wearily out of the car and collapsed on the ground, tangled in my seat belt, half still in the car. I felt myself being pulled up. Nny had me under the arms and was roughly dragging me to my feet.

"Get up, don't make me carry you," he was saying.

I remember falling into my comfortable mattress again and then the lights went out.

**Monday **(upon first awakening) - Cotton mouth is disgusting. When was the last time I brushed my teeth?

Johnny was here first thing (is it morning?) yesterday to wake me up. I had a vicious stomach ache and he helped me up the various stairs to the bathroom, where I proceeded to puke out whatever I had eaten in the last few hours. He then offered me soup, which I ate because I suddenly realized I was hungry. He didn't hit me again, or even say that much. He looked tired as hell though. We had a mini-conversation.

"I cant believe I did that," I said to my soup.

"Neither can I. That was sick."

"I am going to throw up again."

"If you do, I'm going to kill you."

I started laughing at this, and the tension was broken. For the rest of the day, me and him watched TV and I was even able to take a shower before crashing on his couch, which he gave me permission to do.

**Tuesday** (exactly 7:00 am) - Nny informed me that he can't hear the voice anymore. He called her "Batgirl", and said that he didn't hear her speaking anymore. He claimed she spoke whenever I was asleep and was a violent, angry person. I told him he's schizophrenic. He laughed at me bitterly.

He's not bad once you get to know him. Sure, his temper is explosive. Sure, he's deliciously insane. Sure, he'd kill you in a second BUT once you sit down and have a nice long talk about nothing in particular, he's really nice and cooperative. Intelligent. Twisted, but intelligent.

He also said that while I was downstairs that first week, police cars were all OVER the place. He said they came to his home many times to ask questions but, he grinned at me, he was never caught. And never will be.

I wouldn't have believed him before but you can't argue now. He is invincible.

**Thursday** (2:33 am) - Woke up with a very sore back. This couch is killing me. I whined to Nny about it for a few hours. He waved me off and went brooding. He does that sometimes. I meanwhile went go amuse myself by staring out the window for a while. I wondered weather or not they'd come after me for stabbing that guy. Its been on my mind for a long time, but it wasn't as bad as some of the shit I've seen lately. Nny's done much worse.


	2. Go Back to Sleep

**Friday** (2:45 pm) - it's a nice, breezy, cold afternoon. I took a hike through some of the tunnels and came across a cardboard box filled with clothing. I pulled out the cleanest items I could find for myself. The pants didn't fit that great, but the shirt I found, a red flannel lumberjack sort of men's shirt, was warm and pretty comfortable. The jeans I found were torn fashionably and a bit bloody but I washed them in the sink and now they fit fine. Kind of. They are too long and waist is a bit loose on me. 

I haven't seen Nny in about a day but I know he's hanging around here somewhere. He has to come up for air eventually. Meanwhile, I occupied myself by sweeping some of the glass and stuff off the floor since I cut the soles of my feet every time I walk across the living room. I don't have shoes yet.

**Sunday** (8:27 pm) - I actually went outside today. Nny keeps a wad of cash inside this box in his drawer (I don't ask where he gets it) and I pulled out enough to buy myself a decent pair of sneakers at the local thrift store. They are clean, almost new, and thick soled, so I don't hurt myself anymore. Nny appeared about 5 hours ago and we had a more or less polite conversation about the mess of his house. He hauled a mattress up the stairs and now I sleep in a corner of the living room. I have my own egg crate night table.

**Monday** (3:33 am) - The talk went like this:

"Hey...I'm sorry for like...trying to kiss you that night," He shakes his head pityingly at me and picks out a piece of corn from his Ramen soup with his fingers. "I was just...temporarily insane. I didn't mean it." He sighs and throws his head back. This is happening on my mattress by the way, as we are having a civilized lunch. Dinner. Something.

"You left yesterday didn't you?" He finally asked me. I looked down and my new shoes and swallowed. "Why did you come back? I thought you didn't really like it here. I thought you weren't too fond of me. You know...despite your occasional sign of affection." He turned to look at me, leaning back on my blanket. He looked genuinely curious.

"I dunno," I said defensively. But didn't have a good comeback for it.

"Its real weird having you around though," he admits. "I just kind of expect you to be gone one day. " Our conversation is interrupted by the doorbell. Johnny very slowly gets up to answer it and just our luck, it's a pair of police officers.

I hadn't seen an actual Man of Authority for longer than I cared to remember. It was very weird seeing them at the door. They stood at guard, armed with a picture of me. I felt both fear at being caught for stabbing the homeless guy and relief because I had been wishing for them to appear for so long...

They asked Nny some polite question and when the blond one notices me sitting with my Ramen cup on the mattress in torn jeans and a men's shirt, he pulls out a gun so fast Nny actually jerks his head back as though he was shot already.

"Freeze," the older, dark haired one said once he's caught on as well. He had his own gun out and was already reaching for his belt to get at the walkie-talkie. He never made it. Nny grabs for the gun and the cop fires. The bullet misses him by three feet. The younger cop fires as well but miraculously, no shots hit Johnny. He's pulled the dark haired cop's gun on him and suddenly, one is dead and the other is on the ground screaming with a bullet through his calf.

I don't know what Johnny did with their bodies. I heard the younger one screaming for a good hour before he went silent, in the basement, but the older cop...he just disappeared. I was already hiding under my pillow, crying my makeup off. I wasn't sad, I just got hit with reality a little too hard. They were here to either rescue me to hurt me, but they didn't get to do either. I felt a little sick as usual.

Nny came upstairs once the younger one was quiet, covered in a red, shiny, wet coat of body fluid and looking weary. Really weary. His eyes were dulled and dark. He came over and sat down on the mattress where I was huddled and wiped the blood into his hair again, slicking it back. He looked like Dracula for a second.

"You didn't have to shoot them," I said tearfully. I didn't mean to whine but it felt sick. I realized some time ago that I didn't have the same feelings of horror as I should.

He said nothing but patted my arm almost comfortingly. He tugged on my shirt sleeve weakly and stared off into space. Then got up and left, leaving a fresh, bloody hand print on me.

**Tuesday** (5:22 am) - I walked in on Nny wrapping pieces of the older policeman in plastic wrap. He had a steel drum next to him and was very carefully, as though they were kittens, placing the red-stained arms and legs inside. He was humming some song to himself.

I had a dream last night. I dreamt that I was on an airplane with Nny and we were flying over an ocean. He opened his window and stuck his head out like a dog in a car and went he pulled it back, his face had no skin because the wind had pulled it off. I wasn't creeped out though (until I woke up). I realized then that I had bugs in my mouth. I spit some out and I saw that they were small black shiny bugs that looked like fleas. They were between my lips and gums on my top and bottom jaw, so I had to scoop them out with my fingers and they were_still_ there no matter how many time I spit. When I did get them out, they flew away out the window. They were hurting anything though, so I didn't really care that they were there...I just wanted to show Nny that they could fly.

It was real weird though.


	3. I Dub Thee Unforgiven

**Thursday** ( 1:00 am) - Last night I made love for the first time. 

No, I'm kidding, for I have deemed both Johnny and the dead bodies as highly unfuckable things. I just wondered how that sentence would look like. It looks very depressing and stupid.

Actually, I did get fucked, but it was by a piece of glass, and it was no where near romantic. I cut the webbing between my thumb and index finger on my right hand while I was washing a glass earlier today. Its come to the point where I have to wash some dishes once in a while or else I don't eat. Johnny doesn't eat much or drink, and when he does, its prepackaged food from the local 24/7 store.

I just happened to be washing one earlier today and I must have squeezed it too tight or else it was already cracked, but it shattered in my hand and I kept on washing till I noticed the blood in the water and the fact that ouch, my hand really killed. I started panicking when I saw how much it was spewing red stuff and you know what? Nny didn't even get up from the couch. He was used to screaming I guess. It wasn't until I stumbled into the TV room with a dirty dish towel draped over my hand, crying pathetically and dropping to my knees in front of the fuckin TV did he lazily roll his eyes towards me and notice the...pained expression on my face? That I was crying? That I was a bit bleeding? Anyway, he wrestled the towel away from me and while I shrieked in agony he turned my hand over and declared that I was gonna need stitches.

And its not like him to call a hospital or doctor. No, this was a job for Johnny himself. I resisted of course, because I didn't believe that he was...skilled...enough to perform this thing. I didn't want him anywhere near me with a sharp abject and he had me restrained to a chair and ducked-taped down before approaching with a needle and a spool of fishing line.

I have never had stitches in my entire life. I had never cut myself that badly.

"Do not move this hand," Johnny said as he threaded the needle, "because I'm going to miss. Stop crying because it wont kill you. And kick me again and I'll make sure that it _will_."

Do you know the indignity of having someone stitch you up when you don't want to be? Do you know how much a sewing needle hurts? Do you know how frustrating it is to be so cruelly cared for by someone with such little sympathy? I'm lucky it was my right hand or else I would not be able to write. I don't like using his computer. I don't trust it.

**Friday** (6:56 am) - Cleaned my wound until it hurt too bad to move. The Johnny helped by pouring rubbing alcohol on it and I screamed for about 60 seconds afterwards. I think he felt sympathy at that point (!) because he shushed me and gave me what may have been the first hug I've received in months and the first ever from him. It was brief and I was in too much pain to notice the significance but now that I've had my hand submerged in a bucket of ice for the last hour, I have a clear enough to head to remember that he had a very very faint perfume on him that was definitely girly. And familiar.

Its on the front of his shirt which leads me to believe that he's either been out hugging other women, or else wears perfume because he's weird.

**Saturday** (midnight-ish) - Hot Topic, that's what it smelled like. Musty, angry, erotic basement of doom kinda smell. I bet the bottle is red or purple or black with a rose SOMEHWERE on it. I smelled it earlier when he walked by. Its very very faint but noticeable when you look for it. Or...smell for it.

I wonder if I should ask him about it. I wonder if I should ask him about it. Oh I wrote that already.

**Sunday** (I have no idea what time it is) - Middle afternoon doldrums, ho-hum. Oh my hand is doing not so lovely as it hurts and Johnny cannot bothered to worry about me. He has problem right now. He's more tired and angsty than usual so I suspect Mr. Manic-Depressive is going through another cycle. Which means people will die.


	4. Taking out Agression

**Monday** (4:33 am) - Perfume. PERFUME. Why is this bothering me? Because men don't WEAR perfume. Girls wear perfume. Except me, but that's because I have a low tolerance for the stuff. They make my head hurt...they have to be just the RIGHT scent. Anyway...yeah. What was I ranting about? Perfume, right. I plan to ask him about this ASAP. That means never because I don't know how to bring it up. "Hello, how are you WHY ARE YOU WEARING PERFUME YOU TWO TIMING MANWHORE!" 

You can't be two-timing if you haven't even one-timed can you?

**Tuesday** (9:00 pm) - Rubbing alcohol hurts. A lot. BUT the skin is my normal color (more or less) and when it starts turning purple or blue...that's when I worry. Right now its...okay I guess. I mean, a daily pouring of disinfectant is a good idea (no matter how much I loath it). I can tell he's done that before. I have not moved my hand in days. It has just occurred to me that if my hand gets infected and I get gangrene, Johnny would have no misgivings about chopping it off.

I went up to him today as he was lounging around on the couch and sniffed his shirt. I buried my face in his chest and sniffed his goddamn shirt.

"May I help you?" he asked me, tapping the remote against the arm of the couch irritated.

"You smell like girl," I said accusingly.

He picked at his shirt with his index finger and thumb and sniffed it.

"So I do," he said lazily and shrugged.

"Why do you smell like girl?"

"I dunno."

"You lie."

"Because Ive been around girls?"

"Who?"

He raised an eyebrow at me. He was jutting out his lower jaw. I don't know what that meant, but the way he ran a hair through his hair again meant he was nervous about something. I watched his eyes because Ive read that your pupils contract if you're looking, thinking, or hearing about something unpleasant. I wasn't anywhere near enough to make that assessment.

"Why the interest in my social life?" he said with a perfectly straight face.

"What social life?" I asked him. He narrowed his eyes dangerously. "What I meant," I said hastily, "is who have you been touching that smells like cheap, musty perfume?" I was blocking the television but he didn't seem to particularly mind. I was beginning to think that this funk he was in was tiring him out as well as me.

"I don't know. I've been around these last few days," he leaned his head back against the couch back and sighed. "God, I need a new hobby."

"You need a life," I said helpfully. He didn't even seem to hear this. That ended the conversation pretty quick.

**Thursday** ( 10:00 am) - Yesterday, me and Johnny went out. Around 2 am, he woke me up (violently, by shaking me so hard I bit my tongue), and we got ready (I actually wore make up) and went out.

Johnny has a cardboard box filled with stuff from...people. I found multiple bags filled with girly items. Not wanting to take a dead person's purse with me, I settled on using their makeup. I went out in yellow florescent eyeliner and lime green eye shadow, and pink lipstick. It was an odd look, but I had worn nothing but black eyeliner, minimally, when I was by myself. With Johnny, I could pretend I was a normal person out with her date on a night on the town. A town that only had a single night club open at 2 am and it wasn't a raver club.

It was this dark, dusty little club where they played bad music and everyone wore all black. There was this HEAVY sent of incense in the room and the drinks were horrible, but only because I don't like alcohol. Actually...I have never actually ordered or drank a full cup of anything with alcohol in it. It makes me...sickish. Johnny didn't like the stuff either, but downed a single cup in 10 seconds flat.

We sat at a table amid some pretty evil looking couples. One guy had fangs and red eyeshadow. His date was this really flamboyant looking teenager with no shirt on, and his face was so pierced up that even I was disgusted. The older one had a chain around his dates pierced nose.

The club itself wasn't a very bad place to be...a little dark but hey...I used to hang around these places when I was a younger teen.

Johnny was sitting across from me, back to the crowd, leaning back on his chair in that way of his, arms crossed. He had a far away look on his face.

Here's where things got strange. This black girl appears behind him, the only other person there with come COLOR (haha...ha...I'm not racist). She had both arms full of rainbow bracelets and bright baby blue eyeshadow.

"Hi!" she said cheerfully, "I'm Tenna! I'm pretty much the only welcoming party this place has!" She spoke as though every one of her sentences ended with about a dozen exclamation points.

"Hi." I said, glad for human contact. I glanced at Johnny but he had turned his head and was glaring across the room at something.

"You don't look like you belong here," she said pulling out a chair next to Johnny. Her eyes were wide and clear, and even in the dim lighting I could see the glitter covering her face. I smiled as wide as I could.

"I'm new," I said, "and my date here isn't paying very much attention to me, is he?" Tenna elbowed Johnny playfully. He turned his head swiftly towards her but his eyes never left wherever he was looking at. I thought he was being quite the anti-social jerk. He turned back.

"Whatever," she said with a grin and a shrug, "Here!" she pulled a bracelet off her arm and slid it across the table. It was a handmade plastic rainbow "kandy" bracelet with alphabet beads across it saying "PLUR". "For you! Welcome!"

She turned her head and screamed a name across the room, I didn't catch what it was. Out of the crowd a girl was pushing her way through. I saw Johnny almost leap out of his chair when she had made it more or less to our table, and turn his head very quickly towards me again. I saw his pupils had contracted and he was hunching his shoulders strangely. The girl, a pretty goth girl with deep purple hair (and brown roots, how gross), gave me a very demeaning look.

"This is Devi," Tenna squealed, "she's my best friend." The girl looked as though she wanted to spike Tenna through the head for saying that.

"Nice to meet you," I said uncomfortably aware that Johnny was breathing a little harder than Ive ever seen him do without some form of activity to tire him...Tenna and Devi seemed oblivious to his presence, as his back was to them. He was clenching and unclenching his jaw. "I'm...Mackenzie." That was my middle name that I used to be called by friends back home. I decided to adopt Hailey, my first name, when moving but I realized tonight I missed having people call me Mackie.

"Well, its been nice meeting you," Devi said a little angrily, but I have some things to do and stuff and...yeah, I'll see you later, Tenna." She nodded at me, "Mackenzie."

Tenna watched her go and turned back to me with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't mind her," she said friendly, "she's always that grumpy. She's just a puss. Um...is your friend okay?"

Johnny had slammed his head down on the table and now got up and simply walked away, leaving me at the table alone with Tenna.

"He gets grumpy too," I told her and jumped up to follow Johnny, waving to her as I passed.

**Friday**: (11:55 pm) - So today I get another rude awakening because suddenly, there's this hideous screaming coming from downstairs around 6 am.

I haven't really heard anything bad happen for a while...and I really didn't want to venture downstairs again and see what was up, but I did anyway, mostly because the front door was wide open and it was cold and I was awake anyway.

Johnny was actually talking this time, and I heard his calm, dangerously soft voice above the crying.

"Shallow, selfish, vain little bitch," he was breathing to a young looking teenage girl in wide pants and a fishnet tank top. Her bra, fully visible under the net, was awkwardly positioned and she was exposing more then I think she planned. She was smearing her black eyeliner down her face and her purple lipstick was smudged almost comically around her mouth.

Johnny was kneeing in front of her, gloved hands locked around her bejeweled wrists and pinning her to a wall. Her legs were useless with his weight on them...and even as I watched front the top of the stairs, he taped her arms and legs together, talking, crooning to her all the while.

"...where is your boyfriend now? Where are your little friends now?" I beginning to get a bit sick. I don't think I ever really...witnessed him being this way. Ive seen the result but somehow seeing it now...blew my mind. The girl was pleading pathetically. My god, I didn't think she actually did him any wrong. I felt sick. I felt dizzy. I sat down on the stairs.

Once the girl was fully restrained ("I don't know you! Oh my god, who are you? Why me! GET AWAY FROM ME! OH GOD!") I almost swallowed my tongue to see him raise a knife above his head. I screamed louder than her.

Johnny looked up, still with his weapon raised, and his eyes locked on mine. I bounded down the stairs, tripped, and luckily remembered to do a tuck-and-roll ninja move on my way down or I would have cracked my head open on the cement flooring. Instead, I landed on my back, staring up into the dizzying yellow lights.

The girl began to plead with me too. I was crying. I sat up crying. I cried at Nny to leave her alone. He had two hysterical women yelling at him front two directions. He grabbed his head and ran further into his tortured chamber house, leaving me to deal with the poor girl he was torturing.


	5. Continous Lifestyle

_Sorry it took so long for this to be put up. I got real lazy and frankly have no idea how to continue this. Seriously...give me a suggestion and I will do my best incorporate it into the story. This was always more of an exersice in developing a character through journal entires, not really a Johnny story. _

**Sunday** (3:00-ish am) - I had Johnny dye my hair for me.

He was still real angry for most of yesterday, even angrier that I wasn't cowering in corners anymore when he would sweep through a room, waving around that knife that he must have superglued to his hand for the last 24 hours. When he got bored with that thing, he sat down in the kitchen, crossed his arms, leaned back his chair, and stared at nothing and didn't blink for longer than is healthy for a human to keep their eyes open. I thought maybe he was trying to dry them out and go blind, but after a good couple of minutes (you try keeping your eyes unblinking for more than 3 minutes) he sighed very loudly.

So I went out and brought back a box of pink hair dye.

"You sure you wanna do this?" he asked me when I finally dragged him away from the kitchen table.

"Yes," I said firmly, "because my mom never let me dye my hair anything but blond and brunette."

"But pink? Its like...a very vibrant highlighter." And it was. It wasn't the light red of bubble gum, as sometimes pink is called, but it was the highlighter florescent pink that will draw a lot of attention. I have long blond hair that in one hour, will be the most neon shade of pink I have ever seen.

I got the idea from the purple haired girl in the club. She was snooty and aloof, but I kinda had the hankering to do up my hair like that too...

Anyway, it calmed him down, and it burned my scalp nicely.

I am now the coolest person in the whole fuckin town.

**Monday** (Midnight) - Me likes hugs. Nny hates hugs. I gave a hug and he like...whats that word that begins with "w" and means to stand back? Well that's what he did, and then claimed it was because I smelled like peroxide and it made his nose burn. I told him to go to hell. He laughed at me again, the first real laugh Ive heard out of him in like...forever.

**Tuesday** (I don't know nor care what time it is) - When I was downstairs in this torture chamber, I heard a lot of noises, lots of crying and screamed and pleading...and this morning I hear Nny in the other room, yelling obscenities, and then I heard crying. I recognized the sound and I realized that half the time...it was HIM I was listening to.

**Wednesday** (1 pm) - He's asleep. I feel kinda bad for him...worse that I can't do much to help other than stay out of his way, as he's kinda cowering every time I go near. I don't think he likes being touched.

**Thursday** (4:23 am ) - I decided to snap Mr. Moody out of his self-pity by being as wicked bouncy and happy as possible. I even bought a new bag of rainbow pony beads, those cheap plastic dealies? And made a bracelet out of them. Rainbow jewelry gave me a project to do and thus, made me temporarily happy. Thruthfully...Ive been down as Johnny lately. I just don't have the heart (or guts) to go on a killing spree.

**Friday** (6:33 am ) - My gifts weren't appreciated. I threw a bracelet on Johnny while he was asleep and he wore it for a full hour upon waking before noticing. Then broke it in half and threw the beads at the wall. I started crying and kicked his leg really hard and sulked on my mattress all day. I didn't mean to kick him, I just call it payback. He didn't even try to defend himself, or retaliate. He just limped back on the sofa and has been asleep for the last three hours.

I hate my life.

**Saturday** - Fuck it.

**Sunday** - ...

**Wednesday** (4:29 am) - Ho-hum. Still loath life. Very muchly so, in fact. I'm over eating now and may have gained 10 pounds in the last 3 days. Johnny hasn't spoken to me once. My hair is still pink as all hell though, so that's REAL cool. I guess. He brought home another victim and I'm listening to him be himself now...motherfucker. Argh.

Later ( 11:55 pm) - Stole some money out of his shoe box of cash and am now sitting in the small but trendy café across town with his piece-of-shit car parked outside. I am noticing some of the guys walk by and am realizing that I really like Nny. from the back he looks really good. He's got long arms, long legs, long torso, so he's well proportioned. He moves like someone who is complete control of his body and knows exactly how every limb moves so theres like, almost zero awkwardness. I have been realizing that sort of thing lately because...I don't know. He's cool.

I love boys. They are so cool. I wish Johnny was more huggable though.

**Friday** (3:33 am) - Hugged Johnny yesterday and didn't let go until he made some move back. He patted my back wearily. I told him I loved him. Casually though. Like "...Man. I love you." I told him he was my hero. I think I confused him because he was calmer all night. Even slept some during the day. He didn't get mad about me taking his car (with no license) or the money, which I spent on some vampire novel and a movie poster for "The Devil's Rejects". I hung that up in my corner of the living room. I kinda want to whine about having my own room but not so far down that I have to walk for more then 20 minutes to find it.

I think I want a cat.

**Sunday** (6:36 pm) - So I justf ound out that miss high and mighty Purple Hair was Johnny ex. Well, they never actually DATED except for this ONE time that he wrote about in the diary that I didn't read because I was not snooping around his room/closet-with-a-dresser. But he has lingering affections for her. In a weird way I feel very...I don't know. Sad? Threatened? Feeling that maybe I wish he had never met her so that I wouldn't have to worry about completing with her for his attention? Not that I want to be on the same level of affection that she was. No way. Not me. Nope. There's gotta be word for that though.

LATER: I am NOT jealous.

**Monday:** (8:14 pm) - His diary is a very jumbled mess of thoughts coupled with random doodles and the word "Devi" written idly throughout. It has some inspiring words of wisdom on some pages and just spiraling scribbles on others. And he has about 20 of them, all unmarked on the covers aside from a strip of masking tape, yellowed and crinkly, with the word "die-ary" written on it in red or black marker.

In English class last year, my teacher made a big deal about being able to ANALYZE the essays we were assigned to read and I'm doing the same process on Johnny die-aries except I know that if he catches me, he's going to tear out my fingernails and then...I dunno, maybe eat me. Which might not be a bad way to go, really.

**Tuesday** (3:00-ish pm) - Okay, the genre is "diary entries". The language is casual, free-form, spontaneous and by the same-ness of the handwriting and the color of the ink, I'd say all entries are written in full all at once. No pauses in between to go back to an entry and improve upon it.

Situation is a bit convoluted. He writes about his affection for Devi (which makes my stomach hurt, kinda. Like...makes me a bit sick.) He also mentions how he feels around people in rambling sentences blaming them for whats wrong with the world. All very emo/goth but also very evident of his insecurity around other people. He repeats himself often, sometime writing out a full page that says everything exactly the same as another entry, word for word. He has one page with "noodle boy" written over and over. One die-ary has a stab through it that reaches all the way through, like he sat there and stabbed the cover with a knife until he finally penetrated it. Some of the pages have very inappropriate pictures that involve the stab hole. Most are stained brown. Can't tell if its blood or not.

For the most part, any deductions I make are based on what a normal person would say. And I say he's nuts. BUT, I also choose not to dive too deeply into his musings because I think it would make my brain hurt. My brain hurts right now and all I did was try to decipher his shitty handwriting.

But I did kill a good three hours on this project while Johnny was out doing something. He came back with tacos and brain freezies (I got a blue one) and we watched television.

**Wednesday** (2:49 am) - Had Johnny clean out the carnage in the tub. Scrubbed for hours. Its now clean enough to bath in. Have stopped sniffing Johnny. Have not asked him about Devi. Have not really spoken much to him at all. I have a really gross taste in my mouth. I need a new toothbrush.

**Thursday** (5:33 am ) - Yes. I like him. I don't know why it was my fate to develop a crush for a psycho, but its in the stars because I for some reason want to pounce him whenever he walks by me now. It makes me a little sick sometimes if I stop to really think about it. When that realization hits me like a ton of bricks that we would never be safe since he's committed multiple crimes and would be found guilty and sentenced to death if ever caught. I wonder how he gets away with it. I wonder how no one's gone looking for me.

I hate people. I hate myself. I hate Johnny for not making me hate him. Most of all...I hate red ink. I need a new pen.


	6. Reality Check

**Friday **( Noon) - My hair has faded so I fixed up some of the more lackluster chunks with a pink highlighter. Seeing as how I have to wash my hair tonight, I have the rest of today to go out and show it off. Johnny has more or less forgotten my existence again, so I'm pretty much all to myself now. 

Later: Funny story. This afternoon I wandered off into town for some supplies (shampoo is not optional damnit. He never washes it hair so by the end of the week it looks good, as if he greased it down stylishly) and who do I see walking along miserably on the street in a black dress and the most gothy black coffin backpack? Johnny's ole' flame Devi herself. She was walking along swiftly as though the world was against her and all was lost. She so goth!

I followed her for a little while as she wandered through the bookstore and sulked in the horror section, then watched her through the glass as she drank a bitter espresso and stared gloomily.

I am NOT bitter.

**Monday** (3:19pm ) - Did not see Devi today. Which may be good news. Or bad news cuz now I wonder where she is and what she's doing. Its driving me crazy.

Painted my nails red.

Painted my toenails purple.

Realized I had been home alone for 5 hours already and Johnny is no where in sight unless he wandered downstairs where he's been sulking all this time.

I have no idea what to do with myself.

**Wednesday** (6:20 pm) - Johnny lit a newspaper on fire today in the middle of the living room floor. I don't know why the house didn't catch, but he just watched it burn, stamped it out eventually, and walked back downstairs. I was watching this from my couch by the way. Maybe I should go see what he's up to.

**Saturday** (9:51 pm) - I followed Johnny downstairs and for once, walked with through the tunnels willingly. I did not barf. I did not scream. I didn't even look, though I heard people call me when I walked by them.

Johnny must not have known I was behind him for those few minutes because when he suddenly whirled on me, he screamed (boys don't scream...they yell, don't they? He made a loud noise of surprise) and pinned me to the wall.

"YOU!" he said. I noticed that when he gets angry, his pupils contract. A lot. They looked like tiny little pinpricks in the gray of his irises. Maybe his eyes are even blue, but the bloodshot sclera around them made them look all grey and drained.

"Its me!" I said in a somewhat panic.

"I know who you are, Hailey," he said deliberately using my name just to prove he was acting violently with a clear head for once, "I have never seen you follow me down here before."

He backed off and I was surprised to see that I actually slid down the wall...he had been pinning me to the wall with my feet a good three inches or so off the ground.

"I...I..." shit! I wanted to give him a legitimate reason.

"How old are you?" he asked me suddenly.  
"Uh...18 and a half-ish?"

"How long have you been here?"

"I...have no idea. A few months?"

He made the "come hither" motion with one finger and started backing up. Assuming that he wanted me to follow him, I did.

"I want to show you something," he said distantly as I followed him through some tunnels, "something that I wanted to show you a while ago but never got the chance."

Eventually, we came to a room, one of the smallest I've seen in his house so far. It was roughly the side of the bathroom, and a machine or something was right in the middle of it, and halfway in the wall.

There was a mass of yellow hair and two hands in the stockade-like restrain at the front.

"This is Alex," Johnny said in a dangerously soft voice as he, with one hand, wrapped his fingers around the hair and pulled up roughly. I covered my mouth when I saw the state of her face, bruised and encrusted with dried blood. Half her head was shaved, and violently too, with lacerations dotting the fuzz. I felt a wave of nausea hit my stomach.

"Alex deserve this, doesn't she?" he crooned softly, now caressing the longer hair on the girl's head gently. She looked at me with her one good eye, which may have used to be brown or perhaps the capillaries burst and it looked brown now, but she looked at me mournfully. She didn't even talk. She parted her dry lips and opened and closed her mouth once. Then her head was down at the floor again as Johnny let go of her face.

Her fingernails were painted I could see, a candy red. They were broken and ragged. Her fingers tips were blue form cold or lack of blood I didn't know. I didn't want to see what kind of...machine...she was trapped in. I had no choice but to look as Johnny called me over. I stepped around her, her hair gently skimming the cement. I thought I heard her moan. I felt so sick.

He had one gloved hand on a lever sticking out of the wall almost comically. He pulled it down with a sick smile and a panel on the wall behind the girl swung down, followed by a metal sheet with a circular blade attached to it. It was a giant buzz saw.

"Everyday," Johnny said softly, as the blade screamed to life, "everyday I feel the...sickness...from these people...I...stop it..." he looked down at the girl. She was lying on what looked like a vaulting horse, the back of her pink tank top slit open neatly, "I stop it all."

He pulled the level slowly. The blade was lowering until it was just a foot from her spine. Now she was shaking violently and I could hear her screamed over the blade. I heard the double breathed sound that came out of the lungs of someone who had asthma. It was me, and I couldn't breath. I was clutching my chest and I could not catch any breath in my lungs. The girl was screaming, the blade was screaming, Johnny was calm and quiet and still.

The blade did not connect with her skin.

"Sometimes," he said as I tried to force air into my lungs, "I see just how low I can go before it hits them. I lower it ever so lightly," he emphasized by lowering the lever slowly, and the blade followed suit, "and I get it real close."

I covered my eyes. I was crying too, only I don't remember doing that until I realized later my face was wet and my eyes swollen. I didn't want to see it hit her. I heard the blade whirling and Johnny talking softly.

Asthma is a scary thing to have, and an attack was even worse. I was trying my hardest to breath deeply, but the tubes in my chest or throat or whatever, were all closed up. I didn't have my inhaler with me either, so if I didn't get some air soon, I would pass out.

I looked up and Johnny was unmoving. The blade was stationed over the girls back and spun uselessly. Johnny didn't move, but his hand was on the lever. He was looking down.

"Johnny?" I called panicked and disgusted. He looked at me for 2 seconds, then pulled the lever down roughly.

My god, I saw it all. I saw the blade rip into her back, I saw the blood spray vertically as it slide off. I saw a line hit Johnny and stain his shirt and face. I felt the hot blood hit me too. I heard the squeal of the blade as it tore through her spinal cord. She screamed for a very short time.

Then it was quiet. I heard muffled static as my ears got used to the silence. I was on the floor, on my back, staring up at the ceiling at the single yellow bulb. I couldn't breath.

Then I heard my name over and over. I saw Johnny's face, red and shiny, over mine. His pupils were back and he, for once, looked concerned. I felt him lift me up under my arms. I didn't even bother to stand, I just let him pull me up. The girl was still there, but her head was down. The blade was gone. So was most of her back. I swallowed the soar taste of vomit and bile I felt rising to my throat. I was being carried out of the room.

Upstairs, Johnny pushed cup after cup of coffee under my nose as I sat and tried to relax. I had used my inhaler when Johnny threw it towards me after dumping me on my bed, but I was still breathing funny. I drank one sip and threw up. Then I slept. I didn't cry or move or sleep for two days.

All I thought about what how...how did he sneak those people in? how did I never notice? _How?_

**Sunday** (2:55 am) - Johnny was especially nice to me today. He sat with me on the mattress and had one arm around my shoulders. I didn't want him to touch me, but I also didn't want to move to remove his arm. I let him talk his bullshit, though I didn't listen anymore. I didn't eat the soup he gave me. He got angry eventually and left me alone.

I have a constant headache now. Eh. I dreamt I was living in a castle with a giant labyrinth around it. It opened into the old courtyard where there were nuns or other such holy people, walking around. I wasn't supposed to be there, and as I realized this, I flew up into the air and watched them all from above. I landed on a parapet and realized that I was turning into stone. I turned into a gargoyle and sat there until I woke up.


	7. Headtrip for the Mortal Earthbound

**Tuesday** (5:55 am) - Pierced my ears about two weeks ago for the second time. I found these cute skull earrings at this kiosk they set up when the weather got warmer. Didn't hurt as much as I remembered when I got them done last time, about 10 years ago. However, I lost interest in the earrings very quickly and spend a good 20 minutes on trying to replace them today. I had 4 more weeks before I could officially remove them (according to my pamphlet of how to take care of newly pierced ears) but I had these cute star ones that I stole from the local drugstore. 

Eventually, I got one off and on but my right ear hurt too bad. Which didn't stop Johnny, who had been asking me if I "needed help" for 10 minutes. I finally let him do it for me and man, it's a good thing that he doesn't let a little thing like severe ear pain stop him or id be stuck with mismatched earrings for 4 weeks. Its cuz my index fingernail broke and I couldn't grasp the back of the earring properly.

In any case, that was the first time id let him touch me for...over a month now. Last week I lay on the couch upside down with my head hanging off the edge for a half an hour before he asked me if I was still conscious. We had been watching some tv show or something, I dunno, after a while I started to see those annoying flying light spots in my vision, like when you rub your eyes too hard for too long. Our relationship has deteriorated to a simple acknowledging nod once a day. I had developed a case of kleptomania and have stolen from almost every store in town so far, except the fancy clothing place because the cheapest thing there is a 200 dollar suit which I have no use for nor the skill to get away with it.

I talked to Devi a while ago. Just a little conversation at the bus stop. She look preoccupied, holding a brand new set of special, professional-looking paint brushes and a sketch pad to her chest, with her coffin-bag slipping down her shoulder. Her hair, I noticed, had gone blue now and she had cut it real short. Like, pixie cut kind of short. We discussed the weather, the local sports team, some politics, and some recent movie. That was it. I didn't mention Johnny though I really, really wanted to. Instead, I watched her give me an insincere goodbye smile as she stepped onto her bus.

And that's it for my update...

**Monday** (3:28 pm) - I made a new friend last night. Johnny and I were feeling that old cabin fever and since, for once, we were both in the same mood, we decided to go down for some social interaction. We got into his piece-of-shit car and drove (I drove, thankyouverymuch) down to this local goth club. I was just old enough to make it in, and Johnny got us both drinks. Why is it that at goth clubs, all the drink are either purple, or red, or else green? They all taste like sour burning rubber anyway.

My hair had faded out a lot a while back so I simply bleached it out...it was then a very light platinum blond and really frazzled. No conditioner on earth would be able to save it now...but the point is, I didn't look nearly dark and brooding enough, yes not 6 minutes after finding a teeny table, I was approached by this dude.

Johnny was scribbling more nonsense into his "die-ary" and I was sketching something into my notebook...because the alternative was to dance and I didn't like dancing. I didn't know how to dance like they did, anyway. And my pink shirt would draw too much attention anyway.

This guy came up to our table and sat down next to me. He has nice eyes that, if they werent overshadowed by black shiny liquid liner and grey eye smudge, would have been stunning. Now they just look ridiculous.

"Hello," he said in a deep rumbling voice, "my name is Ash." He smiled at me with pink tinged fake fangs; they tell you not to drink red liquids when wearing those nylon fangs, because they get stained. Someone didn't tell Ash though.

"Hello, Ash," I say, batting my eyelashes, "My name is..." 2 second loss of words, "My name is BatGirl." Johnny raised and eyebrow but continued scribbling.

"May I buy you a drink, my dark lotus of the night?"

I didn't mean to crack a smile. I simply didn't believe that people actually talked this way. He seemed perfectly serious though. Here I sit, miss Blond-hair-and-Pink shirt, my rosy cheeks, my glitter eyeshadow and lip gloss, miss half-tanned from the spring sun, miss smells-like-apricots-and-sea-air, and yet I attract a waking corpse wannabe. And am offered a drink that tastes like sour burning rubber. I was just ASKING for it.

"I'm sorry, Ash," I say sweetly, "but my boyfriend here already bought me one." Johnny stopped sketching at this point, keeping his eyes low. "Johnny, I think Ash here would like to treat us to some drinks. "

Ash's fanged smile faltered slightly, but got the hint. He dipped his head at me and stood up.

"Farewell then, maiden."

"Buh-by." I waved.

"I'm not your boyfriend." Johnny said to me when Ash was slinked away, dejected.

"I know that," I said, "but Ash believed me, didn't he?"

He frowned but didn't say anything else.

"You aren't upset are you? Cuz If the thought of being my boyfriend disgusts you so much.."

"Its not that."

"What?"

"...you wouldn't understand."

He sighed and closed his book. He looked at me with those large grey eyes.

"Sure I would," I say a little harshly, knowing I was getting myself into a fight, "you just want to leave yourself open for your precious goth-y ex!"

If Johnny had never looked surprised in his entire life, he did now. Eyes wide, mouth a straight line splitting his face in half. Pupils contracting. My alarm went off and I stood up fast.

"Go to hell," I said and turned to walk away.

And I could, that was great. The doors opened to me, and I stepped out from the clouds of clove cigarette smoke into the sweetly polluted city night-air. The waning moon shone down in a purple horizon dotted with flickering stars. I kinda wanted to cry a little bit. I wanted to march around and back inside and smack him. I wondered if he was still staring blankly at the spot where I had been sitting.

I felt a little sick too. There was a knot in my stomach. It was made worse when Ash suddenly approached me form behind and hit me over the head with something heavy. I didn't fall under exactly, but I knew that if he did it one more time I would. Instead, I went down hard and he caught me under the arms and dragged me over to the alleyway next to the club. I saw red and yellow spinning stars in front of my eyes.

"Shut up," he said raggedly when I moaned a little, "just shut up and you wont get hurt."

Fuck that noise, I remember thinking in my head. I felt him lift my shirt up. I kicked hard and he fell down on top of me in his own little bubble of pain. The next second I saw the night sky again as he rolled off me. He rolled off because he had just been hammered with a metal pipe to the head.

"Fuckin' perverted, pathetic, asshole," said a faulty voice echoing above the stars, "filthy pig, beast," the voice crooned out more adjectives. In a few seconds, I was over the stars and could see straighter. Ash was on the ground, and not moving. I didn't know if that meant he was dead or simply unconscious but Johnny was standing over him with the pipe in hand. I thought how stupid he was because he didn't even know how to tell me that he didn't hate me, he could only follow me around a save me when I was in danger. Like a pathetic ass-tick. I told him so once I was able to form the thought in my head and move my lips and tongue.

"I beg your pardon?" Johnny said when I had whispered it.

"I said, 'you're an ass-tick'", I told him again. My ear hurt and I remembered my sensitive piercing. I would kill Ash myself if he ripped out my earring.

"I'm the ass-tick?" he said shrilly. "I just saved you and I'm an ass tick?"

"Go to hell," I said, sitting up. My head exploded.

**Friday** (5:something pm) -Ate Ash for lunch. I had an Ash burger. With ketchup and lettuce and a Mountain Dew because no other soda on earth is nearly as good. Ground human meat on a bun.

I hate everything and everyone on the face of the planet. I think I'll kill myself tonight.


	8. Skipping a Beat but It Plays

_Hey, Thanks to all you people who review every time a new "chapter" comes out. I guess I wanna clear some things up before you get to reading the new chapter:_

_1. Hailey often says things as a figure of speech, or just to be funny. She didn't really eat Ash, she's just insane. She wasn't really going to kill herself, she was just making a comment about being miserable._

_2. I'm going to assume that the way things are in the comics can stay in my story. Its never explained why Johnny never gets caught killing people. The same spooky forces are at work here, which is why Hailey wasn't discovered stabbing the homeless guy, or why no one cares anymore that's shes missing._

_3. All that money she spends...well, partly it's the cash Johnny steals off his victims and hides, and partly, she steals everything. And, because the Curse of Johnny Cee has rubbed off on her...shes never caught._

_I think that's it. Um...thank you to all who enjoy the story, I write it as the inspiration hits me, and half the time, it's a true account of what I did during the day, I just add Johnny for the helluvit._

**Monday** ( 3:00 am) it's the Witchin' Hour. So I turned up the latest KoRn CD and bounced on the couch for an hour. I decided that "Coming Undone" is Johnny's theme song. And also "Love Song". I can imagine him doing the bit in the middle where Jon Davis sings by his lonesome all dramatically...to his victims.

No neighbors ever complain about the noise. I wonder if they somehow understand that if they were to show up at this house at 3 am and complain that the music is too loud, Johnny would drag them inside and do horrible things to them. Horrible, violent things that made them wish they were dead faster. Oh like that doctor in Feardotcom. Have I mentioned the relevance of that movie in my life yet? Because I'm like the evil nurse that shoots everyone up with poison and laughs as they convulse.

I'm feeling morbid today. I don't shoot people up with poison.

Johnny smells like weed today. It replaces his usual faint perfume smell. Which I hate by the way. I'm beginning to sniff random perfume bottles around the mall to see if I can figure out with one it is. I dunno if its different everyday and I don't notice the subtle differences or if he has some chika to mess with when I'm not around. Maybe he's a necro. Oh god. The images come. They burn.

I live my life on an infinite supply of Mountain Dew Code Red. And junk food. I gained a lot of weight. I don't fit into the pants I used to anymore. On the brighter side, my cup size is now an official C. I think I'll stay at 125.

Um...Christ, you'd think my life was a shallow piece of shit.

Nodisknodisknodisknodisknodisksomeoneneedstotturnoffthedvdplayernodisknodisknodisknodisknodisknodisknodisk

I'm feeling weak...missing parts...incomplete...don't let them throw me away...keep me and I'll be okay...skipping a beat but it plays...don't let them throw me away...

I have all these words in my head and such an inability to write them out. Its like a road block blocking a huge dam and if only I knew how to crush it id be flooded with these emotions and images and all this crazy shit that would fill up this page and all them remaining pages in this stolen notebook with paragraphs and verses and proseseses of what that girl in Mean Girls called word vomit which is exactly what this is because I lack the ability to even punctuate my sentences because I don't have the time to stop my hand moving I need to do something with myself I cant live like this anymore because I think I love Johnny but I also hate him because he is the devil and he's turned me into this pathetic fucked up being just like himself and every time he does something nice its like I can forget all the bad things he's done to me except whenever he goes and does something horrible all I can think about is what a loser I was for liking him and my god I should just hang myself with my own guts from the rafters that he is too lazy to cover in my ceiling and then he'd come home and see my dead face staring down at him and my life would flash before my eyes and id remember what I was like before I met Johnny because my god I DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING THAT WAS BEFORE JOHNNY I THINK I HAVE LOST MY MIND AND THIS IS ALL HIS FAULT o god help me I don't want to go to hell for this but I lost my train of thought three hours ago and I don't remember why I started this ranting anymore.

And I'm out of dew.

**Tuesday** (3:12 am) - I used to be Hailey but I havent gone by that name in a long time now. Johnny calls me BatGirl all the time. He says it affectionately too, the fucker.

I feel like a selfish bitch right now. Ignoring all the things I hear them scream and I don't do anything about it anymore. I used to cry with them but now I just sit and listen to them. I cant laugh like he does sometimes. I cant pretend I don't hear them. I should be helping them. I can do anything I want. I could go down there and save them, like a hero. I could release them from their chains and duct tape and boxes and lead them outside. Id tell them to go home, and they'd thank me. Johnny would change and turn into a good person. He'd fix up his house and we'd date. Id go grocery shopping with him. We'd buy junk food and them argue about it. On Halloween we'd dress up in matching vampire costumes and go to parties and dance, drinking the spiked punch and talking with our mutual friends and having a good time. We'd go to fairs in the Autumn and ride the rides and eat candy apples. He'd win me a stuffed toy. Id buy him cotton candy. He'd be asking me to call him "John" because it sounds so normal and nice.

I discovered today that Vivaldi songs make me cry.

**Thursday** (2:39 am) - Gross. My ear is doing something funny. The earring is kinda painful and its kind of...leaking. And then crusting. Its very very disgusting. I truly hope I am not getting an infection because that would suck.

I caught a cold. My throat killed me all day yesterday, and today, my asthma has been plaguing me.

Oh I caught Johnny doing something weird. He was watching TV and stuck his finger in his mouth.

"Are you picking your teeth?" I asked him.

"Yes. I have popcorn caught in my gums. Its killing me."

It was such a stupid human action, picking popcorn out of his teeth, Mr. Spooky Grim Reaper, Mr. Tortures-people-to-death-in-his-basement...I laughed for a while. I havent had a good laugh in forever.

**Sunday** (1:00 pm) - Saw Devi again. She was with that black chick we met at the club...Tonja, something like that. They were eating at this outdoor café together and talking about something...I dunno. She was drawing something on a napkin though, and I waited for them to leave, and picked it up. It was a picture of a unicorn, but it was really good. Shes really good at animal proportions. I'm jealous.

**Wednesday** (5:12 pm) - Took a tour in the basement tunnels today. For lack of anything else to do, really. Found more shoeboxes of cash, some more clothes, some shoes, its like a freaking concentration camp down there. Peoples things piled up as though he had no idea what to do with them. I took is journal with me though, for reading material. I found one of my old rooms, the door still smashed, and sat down in a corner and read some more. He mentions me in the more recent entries. Nothing really fancy, just general stuff...

_"...sits by herself reading or writing in her little book or else just disappearing for hours and when she comes back each time its like I only then remember that she exists now..."_

Yeah, that's how I feel too.

**Monda**y (4:39 pm) - One month ago, Johnny stalked into the kitchen where I was eating a sandwich and threw his die-ary at my head. It bounced off my eye and into the sink. I screamed and started cursing him out. Johnny then launched himself across the kitchen and pinned me to the table.

"I'll kill you," he was saying very slowly, through clenched teeth, "I'm going...to kill you."

I didn't know what was going on at first, but since he had thrown his journal at my head, I assumed he was angry that I had been reading it...I wondered how he found out. But I only wondered that for a second, because the next thing I knew, he had his hands around my throat and was strangling me, violently.

I had a friend once, a single flash of memory from my past life, who liked S and M type stuff. She had shown me bite marks on her arms and legs from her boyfriend, and had once even worn a scarf for a week because she had these unattractive ligature marks on her neck from a rope. I remember wondering how it might feel to have someone strangle me...she made it sound kinda of cool.

Its not cool. It hurts really bad. I was starting to seriously panic because I could honestly not pull in a breath. I though asthma was bad, but at least with asthma, it was never so bad that I couldn't get up and find my medication. But when someone is sitting on top of you on a cold hard linoleum floor, with their fingers around your neck, and your throat is burning and you cant breath...its really scary.

I gasped and tried to pry his fingers off but he was pretty resilient. He let go only after I got too weak to struggle.

"You're going to die now, Hailey," he said to me as I rolled on my stomach and tried to crawl away towards the living room. I remember all the injuries I had sustained over the last year. The only act of violence Johnny ever did towards me was kicking my ribs...but that time I sliced my hand open on a glass cup and he had to sew me up himself...even my most recent whack on the head from Ash. This time, I was fully convinced that he was going to finally slaughter me.

I didn't know exactly where I thought I was going. I simply wanted to put as much distance between me and him as I could manage. I didn't get very far because Johnny grabbed my sneakers and pulled me back into the kitchen.

"Don't leave yet," he told me dangerously, "you've been here so long, why on earth would you want to leave now?"

Pleading does not word with the devil. He dragged me into the bath room, where he stepped on my chest, harshly, and rummaged through the drawers under the sink. He pulled out a bag of cotton balls and a bottle of my lotion.

"Stop that," he said when I tried biting his ankle, "because I'll have to kick you and break all your teeth. I don't want to do that yet." He tucked the bag and bottle under one arm and pulled me back out into the living room.

"Brace yourself," he warned me, and thoughtlessly let me slide down his stairs into the basement. I landed painfully on my side. Johnny was walking down the steps very deliberately towards me.

I don't think at this point I shouldn't even mention that I was crying and pleading, right? that's assumed. I was very upset, to say the least.

I'm tired. I'll finish this story tomorrow.


	9. The Spookster

Tuesday (9:57 am) - Johnny is all about precision. He has the hands of an artist, if my theory is correct and all those random paintings around various parts of the house are actually his. He's actually pretty patient when it comes to something like anatomy.

I don't really want talk about it. My head is killing me. Johnny just got home and brought me a box of tissues for my nose which started bleeding again after I ran into the wall half an hour ago (didn't mean to). He also has a bag of that Pilaf Rice I really like and he promised to make me dinner. I smell it now.

Yesterday he sat behind me and examined my back for a little bit, to see if anything was getting infected. I refused to remove my shirt and I didn't have the strength to actually put on a bra, so he only had to lift that back up. I didn't really enjoy him touching my back because I had just gotten the bleeding to stop and when he ran his hand over some of the scabs they split open again.

I'm pretty sure he wrote his name in exacto knife but I'm too scared to look in a mirror.

My face is okay now though, except for a teeny scar on my eyebrow, but its all white now and I think I got that years ago. I don't think he had anything to do with it...I think.

He just cracked his neck. Like a machine gun. Pop pop pop pop...he needs exercise. Or, an exorcism. Ha, I'm so funny.

Wednesday (3:44 am) - Rah. Dislocated my right arm today. I'm becoming way too jumpy. Johnny set it alright for me, but damn does it hurt. I dislocated it because I'm really nervous these days and spazzed out when Johnny tried to wake me up earlier. I was having a nightmare anyway and he freaked me out and I smashed my self into a wall because I forgot it was there...that's what happens when you sleep against a friggin wall.

I'm refusing to speak of what happened in the basement. Just because the voice in my head is asking. And because the minute Johnny stops being nice to me, I'm going to hang myself.

Though...if didn't think I was going to die...I would have enjoyed the bondage. The pain not so much. Only a little.

This is why I deserve to die.

Thursday (3:12 am) - Ahh! My ankle hurts! I don't believe there is a part of my body that isn't bruised or other wise bleeding. I may be more miserable right now than I have been before. Its like no matter what I do try and make myself happy, someone comes in and fucks shit up so badly.

I need a friend.I need another human being who can give me a hug and say "aww its okay don't cry" instead of trying to kill me.

Friday (10:00 pm) - I did something not-so-cool earlier. Johnny was staring out the window for t least three hours. I felt better today...and it was making me sick. So I tackled him. I really messed up my ankle which was healing, and my back bled a little, and minor injuries like that happened, but the point is that I got Johnny. Real good. I walked right up to him and punched the back of his head. He turned and had that LOOK in his eyes but I wasn't afraid of it anymore. I started pounding his face with my fists against the plywood that was his window. I expected him to fight back, maybe, or something. Instead, he kung-fu'd me by grabbing my wrists and my momentum carried me almost out the window. He then crossed my arms over my chest and covered my hands with his own. I used this move once on my little sister who tired to punch me for stealing some candy that was supposedly hers.

In any case, suddenly we're both looking out the window at the sunset, Johnny's not moving and being very quiet. I tried to squirm away and he tightened his grip on my hands and nearly crushed me in a bear hug. For a little guy, he has a lot of power. And he was currently pressing a little too hard against my back. I felt the skin rip a little. I whimpered, hoping he'd notice.

"You're weird, you know that?" he said softly at the red sun, "you're some kind of fucked up. Sado-masochistic, sad little girl. Why don't you just go home?"

Because you are currently crushing me, that's why.

"See, the problem is, I want to hurt you. A lot."

Oh God. When he gets this creepy, I want to hide. But I cant. Because he's crushing me.

"But experience tells me that perhaps, that's not the best way to keep a friend. Or girlfriend. Or...anyone."

Sun goes down. If he sprouts fangs and bites me I'll consider this a fulfilling evening. I don't want to hear a speech.

"What do you think, BatGirl? What should I do with you? Should I keep you the way you are, all broken? Or should I just throw you away now?"

Eek!

He stayed quiet for a while, still immobilizing my arms. I waited very quietly. My back was killing me. My shoulder's were beginning to ache something awful. I felt his slow breathing. He was tightening his grip on my hands...I hope he didn't mean to break my fingers. He had already dislocated both arms (one of them to even out the fact that he had accidentally dislocated the other) and I needed my fingers.

Thankfully, he let go once the sky turned black. And...I'm tired of writing. I'm going to go sleep.

Sunday (6:19 am) - I had the best night! It started out shitty though. I went down to the local video store to rent something, and I run into Johnny, who was milling around like a retard in front of the 24/7. We're inside Blockbuster. There's this annoying group of college kids, the idiot ones who are there to make noise and fuck with people. You know, right? They're just hanging out looking at videos and calling each other "douche bags". I walk by one of them and he coughs "ugly" under his breath in that not-so-subtle way.

See...I wasn't feeling that horribly confident anyway. My hair was chopped in all sorts of funny ways (Johnny makes a shitty barber) and my black eyes was still fading. So I tired to ignore him but, I'll admit, it really hurt. Even though his girlfriend laughed and fake-pushed him, saying "oh you're so mean!". I knew Johnny heard cuz he was behind me at the time. I felt really stupid.

I picked up my movie and paid for it, but as I was walking out, Johnny grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side of the building.

"Wait," he said and leaned against it. We both sat under the sign together for a while. I didn't say anything, but I was suddenly feeling very self-conscious about my hair. It was pretty short for the most part...though some pieces in back were longer...I knew I looked like an accident victim. I didn't want to start crying right then but I knew my eyes were beginning to burn.

Johnny rubbed my head like petting a dog. Which felt really funny. Because head-fuzz feels funny to the person being petted.

Then the guys came out, the ones who made fun of me. Johnny jumped up like a flash and walked up right behind the one who, specifically, called me ugly. Ripping his girlfriend away from him, Johnny lashed out with his right foot and sunk it into the guys lower back, knocking him the ground.

The other guys stared in confusion for a moment, because Johnny really gives no warning when he strikes. Like a fuckin cobra. The girl screamed first. One of the other guys, this blond one in a navy blue jacket, took a swing at Johnny, who ducked awkwardly, and suddenly, times stopped. The guy stood mid swing, unmoving. Johnny hand his hand buried in the guys gut. The girl ran to the car some 20 feet away.

When Johnny pulled back, I saw his gloved hand was gleaming under the yellowish glow of the Blockbuster sign. And I saw that the handle of his knife was still imbedded in the blond guys stomach. And you know what? I was rooting for Johnny the whole time.

The blond guy keeled over and...eh long story short, because the action gets to me, we dragged that muthafugga all the way home. I'm real happy right now because I feel hideous justification. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I feel ALIVE. Because he got what was coming to him. All of them, minus that bitch that got away, got what they deserved.

Sadly...this makes perfect sense to me. Suddenly I realize that...o god I am a Nazi.

In any case...we got the not-blond guy to Johnny's basement (we left the blond guy on the street, fuggim) because despite the fact that he weighed more than me and Johnny combined I bet, we did it TOGETHER.

Monday (3:48 am) Watched Tv "The Iron Giant" is my favorite animated movie of all time, ever. It was spectacular. My god, I wish live action movie were that great.

Erm...in other news, I split my lip open a little while ago sneezing...the change in weather always affects me the same way; dry lips and itchy skin.

Tuesday (2:00 am) - Nanananananana BATMAN! They played those wicked old reruns of Batman on TV yesterday. So I went out to the local goth store and bought myself a coolest batman logo belt buckle. And the belt to go with it but the pyramid shiny pieces are wicked uneven, so I had to remove three rows of them, thusly stabbing my fingers with the sharp bits in back. Anyway…I have an awesome belt.

Monday (3:12 am) - Guess what I found wandering the streets two days ago. It was a cat. So I adopted it, and carried it home, named it "Spooky" and it scratched my face off when I tried to feed it, so I let it run rampant through the house. Johnny got miserable, more than usual, when he started sneezing and dying on me. Turns out, he's allergic to cats. That's so cute. But I sent him out for cat food and he came back with rat poison instead. Bastard. Spooky scratched him as he tried to get near it, so, Im going to keep it, as it is the perfect pet. Its able to defend itself against the madmen. Go kitty!

Thursday (9:56 am) - I want to cause him some pain. Like he caused me. You know…the first kick in the ribs that night so long ago…when he stitched up my thumb and it killed…how he waited so long to save me from "Ash" the vampire and I got hit in the head with someone hard and heavy…and most recently, the fact that he didn't write HIS name on my back, but MY name, my 7 fuckin letter name…

So, what I did was go up to him while he watched television and tell him that Devi would never date him again because he was a selfish, worthless loser who was so fucked in the head that only a long complicated Freudian word would describe what was wrong with him. I also told him that he should stop whining about killing himself and do so quietly just to shut the fuck up, so I didn't have to hear him bitch.

And then I felt very very bad because he got that look on his face. His eyes glittered like he was about to cry, his lips were pressed together tightly, and he only blinked and looked down into his lap. And….said….nothing.

I left the room and took two sleeping pills to go to sleep and not wake up for a good 8 hours.

I am a horrible person.

Friday (3:22 am) - rah! Spooky slept in my bed today! It laid itself down next to me in a curled ball and purred! It actually purred! I was so happy I cried, because for once, I had warm fuzzy small mammals happy to be in my company I think me and the Spookster are going to be very good friends. 


	10. Wishing on all the Rainbows

_Todays playlist includes "Karma Chameleon" by Boy George, and "No Sacrifice" by Elton John. Oh, and "Yatta" by the Greenleaves. Also, "Close to You", by the Carpenters._

**Monday** - Yatta yatta yatta yatta…

Spooky lead me outside in the sidewalk today outside of Johnny's house, and because it was a wonderfully warm morning, I sat on the sidewalk, eating one of those twin Popsicles where you get two for the packaging of one. It was grape, because Johnny hated grape and that was all that was left. I felt bad for that pop, being so hated by him.

That little kid next door wandered over after a few minutes in a white stained shirt and shorts, and those beat up converses that matched mine, except mine were scruffier and pink, to boot. They rocked.

Anyway, I said hi, and he just looked at me with HUGE eyes and said,

"You know Johnny?"

Almost knocked me off the sidewalk.

"Yeah. Do you?"

"He used to come by my house," said the little kid in a squeaky type of voice, "but I haven't seen him in my room in ages." He watched me stare at him shocked for 4 seconds, until the hot sun melted sticky artificial grape juice down my wrist.

"You've been keeping him busy?" he asked me strangely. "Did he…do that to you?" he pointed at my head. I rubbed a hand over my fuzz.

"Yeah. And, yes."

"Oh."

"My name is…Hailey. But, he calls me Batgirl."

"Oh. I'm Todd. But he calls me Squee."

We looked at each other for a little longer, then Todd turns and says "well see ya" over his shoulder. My ice pop meanwhile slid apart and fell onto the pavement, where Spooky ran over to lick at it.

**Tuesday:** Swept the living room. Scrubbed the floors. Arranged the crates and "furniture" in a fung-shui fashion. The room is now, more or less, livable. Which is a good thing for a LIVING room to be, eh?

Also, walked over the Nicey's for some food. They have good food. I think one day I'll get a job there, maybe. This one girl there, uber black and wicked friendly, kept trying to engage me in conversation. I think she was wicked disappointed when all I wanted to do was eat and leave.

I saw Devi today though, at the Goth café, typing up something on a laptop and sipping some coffee that was more sugar and cream than actual coffee. I didn't know what to say to her, but she must have recognized me from before, cuz she waved in my direction and smiled. Her hair is longer…but still blue.

Spooky is quite a small cat, I noticed earlier today. That must account for the extra energy. It ran in circles around the cleaned living room before getting tired and hiding under the couch…where we watched TV together. Johnny is gone. Dunno where he goes. I don't care though, silence is nice.

I also realized that I have no idea of Spooky's gender. I think, with a unisex name like that, it'll remain that way.

Ate the last grape ice pop. Grr.

**Wednesday**: Stab stab. Life is boring. I think Johnny crawled off and died somewhere.

Argh. My hair. I cried earlier because I realized my hair was gone…my beautiful platinum blond hair, snipped to shimmering golden pieces in front of my eyes! Lost in the grime and gore of his Basement of Death. Stamped under bloody boots. See, my eyes are watering AGAIN over the thought. I don't feel bad for calling him a loser anymore. He deserved it. My poor hair….

**Sunday:**_ Why do birds suddenly appear whenever you are near? Just like me, they long to be…close to you…why do stars fall down from the sky when you walk by? Just like me, they long to be…close to you…_

Spooky got into a box of Christmas decorations and torture restraints. Its shitting tinsel. And its not even Christmas yet! Why the hell would a person keep a box of Christmas stuff lying around in the middle of the spring? I ask you…why?

I brushed my fizz in the bathroom mirror for an hour today, and you know, its not fuzz so much anymore…its very very very short, but in a few weeks I can bleach it out again and have my blond back.

Johnny's not back yet. I havent left the house in a few days. I watched Todd ride his bike up and down the block. Hes a cute kid. I wonder what he meant about Johnny visiting him. Im scared to think about it.

I almost murdered myself on a razor earlier today because they just kinda hang around randomly in this house. You cant open a drawer without poking/cutting yourself on something sharp.

Johnny, where art thou?

**Saturday:** Hiding from me, that bastard. I drew a picture on the living room wall in permanent marker. It's of a girl, sitting, drawing spirals and curlies around her, with happy faces and suns and stars all around. She had a kitty with her (actually Spooky, who sat still for me for 10 minutes, yeay kitty) with wings. In the spirals are lyrics to some songs I like that arent sad. I think I'll paint it.

Except … what was I thinking about just now? I lost my train of thought. Real badly. Um…I long to be…close to you…

**Monday:** Painted some real cool designs on my eyes with liquid eyeliner. You can use the stuff like a pen and your face like a piece of paper. Or, wall. I made swirlies. Not goth-y ones…but real cool ones. Too bad I have no place to go to show them off…and no one to go with anyway. Boo-hoo. Its hard to find things to do with your time.

My back is itchy. My god I wanna gnaw the skin off, but I cant reach my head around back there. Im rubbing myself up against walls and stuff. It hurts when I do it but the itch drives me mad otherwise. Rarg! Pain pain pain!

Oh, and Johnny has returned. Yesterday he comes through the door (kicking it in first) and goes downstairs where I assume he is now. I dunno what hes up to, but…Ima go see. I have a death wish, anyway.

**Wednesday:** The funniest thing I have ever witnessed in my life happened today. I downloaded "Karma Chameleon" on the computer and I was playing it when I saw Johnny slide into the room, mouthing the words. Yes, it was very bizarre. Because he knew all the words.

_"I'm a man without conviction, I'm a man who doesn't know how to sell a contradiction, you come and go, you come and go…"_ It was fucking hilarious. He even had this horrible little happy dance to go along with it, and I may have busted a gut laughing at it.

Times like this, he seems like a normal guy, just really scrawny. And a bad dancer.

**Friday:** I told Johnny it was no sacrifice. Just a simple word. I told him it was two hearts living in two separates worlds. He looked at me like I had just grown a second head.

Spooky has found joy in the toilet. It hangs around the bathroom and just sits there on the seat staring at it as though its going to reveal the winning lottery tickets in the rust and calcium infested depths. And when I flush it, it goes crazy and tries to catch the water in its paws. I stopped using that bathroom and gave it up to the cat. Yeay Spooky.

Lit some candles because electricity is useless now that its warm as hell outside. I read my candle light. I dream I met the devil in an abandoned movie theater, it he looked like that guy who played the headless horseman in that Sleepy Hollow movie with Johnny Depp. I don't remember what we talked about, or if we even did but it was pretty cool.

My hair grows. No thanks to Mr. Crazy Scissors.


	11. Ring around the Rosies

**_Thanks to everyone who reviewed my story! I appriciate the nice comments! I decided things were boring as hell in my story so we're going to make some insanity. I love you guys!_**

**Tuesday**: Hair hair hair.

Punched some guy in the face today. Got punched back. Sat for an hour today with cotton balls up my nose to stop the bleeding and Nny laughing at me cruelly. Jerk.

I punched him because…I don't wanna talk about it. He just hurt my feelings so I reared up and next thing I knew, I was on the ground with a pulsing nose and a vicious headache. Fuck you, faceless tormentor. I'll KILL you.

Anyway, I got myself home bleeding, and no one even stopped to ask me how I was doing. Like I was fuckin invisible or something. My nose feels like there's some giant splinter in it, and I have to look down to write so…I'm going to go away and lay down for a while.

**Friday**: Better. No more pain. Nny's been stacking ice on my face for a while. If its not broken, then I'm suffering from frostbite. But I'm alive and able to recall and laugh over my not-so-valiant murder attempt. I don't know who it was. I don't even remember why. I just wanted to slaughter him though. Johnny's a HORRIBLE influence on me.

Watching some horrible cop show, and people are all dying, and there was a car crash, and children screaming and if I see a kittens so much as limp away from this thing, I'm going to cry.

**Sunday**: Nose sore. Especially because I got elbowed in the face just now and am squirting out fresh blood. But not just from there. I was writing an entry about something or other, and stabbed myself through the hand with my pencil. I just…did it. Just to see if I had the stupidity. Turns out, I do. So I wrapped gauze around it and walked around the house for a few hours, leaving droplets of blood behind me like a trail of breadcrumbs. Only, bloody. Johnny didn't notice at first because blood around isn't exactly something out of the ordinary around him, but he's usually good about keeping it out of the living room. Eventually though, I saw him scrutinize a small puddle of it near the tv where I had sat for half an hour trying to find a movie from the old VHS movie bin that's he keeps around (VHS's? wtf?). It didn't take long for him to notice that the blood was from me, and that it was leaking through my bandage.

I don't know why I did it. It certainly wasn't the worst thing that happened to me. Except this time, I didn't cry. I just sat around waiting for him to notice me. Once he did though, he dragged me into the shitty (haha) bathroom to remove my covering and carefully look it over. It was pretty damn ugly; blood just falling out it, half formed scabs tearing open, tissue all torn up…I didn't make it all the way through but I went far enough that the pencil was bloody from the tip to the part where the sharpener didn't reach.

"What the fuck?" He asked me simply, running a blast of cold water on my hand. My fingers were purple.

I shrugged and didn't make noise as he deliberately handled it roughly. Only when he pressed two gloved fingers on it and squeezed did I scream, and then he seemed satisfied.

"Good," he said, holding my hand down as I tried to squirm away, "you know you're alive when you're in pain."

"Fuck you!" I said, beating his shoulder with the fist my good hand could make, "I fucking KNOW I'm alive, now fuckin let go!"

"Quit cussin'" he said, shrugging off my beatings as though I was just tapping him, "and hold still. How long ago did you do this?"

"The fuck do you care?"

"Hailey..."

"Batgirl."

He turned to look at me, his eyes narrowed at me dangerously. He had one hand holding down my injured hand under water, and the other was just beginning to come up to hit me. I saw it happening, so I slapped his hand away and slipped my bloody one from his fingers. This is why you do not wear shiny gloves; no friction, man.

Tired now.

**Monday**: Continuing on.

So, there I was, holding my hand with he had hurt even more when he didn't let go when I asked, and here HE was, staring at me and he goes into pounce stance. You know it, when someone bends their knees slightly, opens their arms, and get this look on their face like "I kill you now."

And he was blocking the fuckin door.

"Okay," he said, advancing in that shark-ish way of his (da-dum…da-dum…da-dum da-dum…), "you're bleeding all over the floor, remember how you cleaned and scrubbed it?" he asked me in a tone of voice I would use on a three year old. Reverse psychology will never work on me, asshole.

"My hand began throbbing BADLY, and I did start to cry, thought I was dead-set on not letting him see it. I swallowed my tears.

"Come on," he said three feet away from me, "just come here and we can fix your hand and clean all this up…"

"Don't…touch….me."

"Why not?" he asked. He held his hands up to his face, in that sign of "I'm not armed", and curled his fingers mockingly. "You've been wanting me to for such a long time…"

I gripped the towel rack I was using to keep my balance harder. I was getting woozy from lack of blood, but his words made my cheeks warm and flaming. I started breathing hard, and my hand went numb.

"That's right," he whispered, close enough to touch me, "you're tired aren't you?"

Suddenly, I was deathly afraid of what would happen if I blacked out. But it was coming I knew it. My vision was getting blurry around the edges, and my ears began to static louder than ever before. Like someone tuned into white noise in my head on full volume.

I tried hard to stay above the blackness. But then my knees buckled and before I knew it, I felt myself go under, and heard his quiet chuckle seconds before I slipped away.


	12. Be me when I'm Gone

**_More action with actual people in the next chapter, I promise. YEAH NEKKIDNESS!_**

**Wednesday: **Woke up when I heard laughing. Quiet chuckle type laughing, like what I heard right before I fell asleep. I permeated through my dreams even, and I saw him laughing at me right before I was torn apart on one of his machines.

Naturally, I woke up screaming. And unable to move.

My arms where pinned to my sides, though in my exhausted and groggy state, I couldn't guess why. I was lying on my stomach on my mattress, drooling all over my pillow. My hair was long enough now to tickle my face.

I awkwardly tired to sit myself up by rolling over, but I couldn't for the life of me gain the strength to move. Instead, I groaned.

"Oh," said a voice somewhere behind me, "you're awake? Finally. I thought for a good while that I finally killed you."

"Uhgg…" I told the voice.

I felt hands tug at my shoulders, or, at least the material on my shoulders, and pull me up. My hair fell over my eyes in dirty blond, greasy locks. How long was I out?

My head rolled back and I saw an upside face looking at me. Grey eyes, black hair, Cheshire cat grin. Oh goody.

"Ooooh." I said.

"I don't know what that meant," Johnny said shaking me a little while I readjusted my head, "but I'm going to assume that you're feeling slightly better. Can you breathe okay?"

I was wearing a straight jacket, I observed. My arms weren't pinned to my sides as I thought, but they were hugged around me, binding me so firmly that I couldn't even wiggle. A strap was attached to the crotch of my pants to prevent me from pulling it over my head. How does Johnny find these things?

"…why am I wearing a straight jacket?"

"Because I was tired of getting my eyes scratched out."

"Oh." I paused, rocking on my knees, "I scratched you?"

"Oh you tried. I cut your nails though. You've been out...a…while."

"How long is a while?"

"Guess."

"Fuck you."

"I respectfully decline that offer, you'd hate me even more in the morning." He began fiddling with the clasps and buckles on the jacket and in seconds, my arms were free. I was wearing the same shirt. It was dirty, bloody, yellowed, and torn.

"Couple of days?"

"…only if by 'couple', you mean more than two. Its been…a month maybe? Give or take a few weeks."

"Oh god."

I stretched my hands over my head and turned my head. Johnny was sitting against the wall on my mattress, arms folded. He was staring off into space. I saw now healing pink lines running down his jaw, and a fresh looking one over his eyebrow.

"You didn't…do anything to me, did you?"

"…excuse me?"

"Like…am I missing any organs?" I looked down at myself, at bruised skin and dirt, and grime. "Did you hurt anything?"

"You mean did I stab you with a pencil? You did that yourself, remember?"

"I…yes, I did, didn't I?" I checked out my hand. It was covered in gauze but I lifted a corner and saw that it was actually healing somewhat, with a scab the size of, well, a pencil. The hand was also cleaner than my other one, but my nails were cut shorter than I liked, and crusted with dirt.

"I have to go shower. Now." I stood up and immediately fell back down, nearly cracking my head open on the floor.

"Yeah, that won't work; just lie there for a second." Johnny stood up, while I writhed on the floor, and walked away from me. I had a chance to lie back and reflect. I heard water being turned on somewhere."

Nothing hurt too badly, in fact, I was feeling fuzzy. Like I was being tickled all over my skin. It occurred to me that since I was out for a month, I must have been fed insane amount of drugs. The spotted, filthy ceiling above me was spinning like a kaleidoscope.

"Okay you," said Johnny within minutes. I felt myself being raised off the floor. He was carrying me somewhere.

And then suddenly, warmth. I sunk like a rock into the bathtub, fully clothed. It felt orgasmic. I didn't realize how cold I was until I lay inside a cocoon of warm, frothy water.

"Don't drown," he said retreating out of the bathroom. Drown? Of course I would drown. I was warm and satisfied and not in pain, and fuzzy. If I were to slip into the water and forget to come back up for air, well then who would blame me?

I didn't get the chance though. Nny came back with a clean towel and a bottle of hair shampoo. I was already halfway through pulling my shirt off.

"Don't do that," he said stopping at the doorway and covering his eyes with his arm.

"I need to clean myself," I said tossing my wet shirt across the bathroom, "and I don't care if you see me all naked. You've seen me completely sockless, That's almost the same thing."

"Um…I'll leave this here for you then," he said, not removing his arm from his face. He set down the bottle of shampoo and managed a curious peek just as I was standing up and pulling my jeans off.

"Wash these for me," I said, throwing him my pants.

Thus began the most wonderful bath I've ever had in my entire life, ever.


	13. Going in

**Thursday: **Decided to leave for a little while. Packed up some clothes and shoes and my favorite lipgloss along with a shoe box o'money. Left earlier this morning and took a shower at the local shelter. Washed my hair and everything. Did my make-up all nice. I am even wearing perfume from a bottle I bought at the local store. Its purple and black and smells like burning wood and I love it.

This is the story of my life: I lived with Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and saw a lot of things that no normal human ought to be subjected to. I have been the other end of those things on at least one occasion that I am aware of. I have been burned, frozen, sliced, kicked, bitten, scratched, stabbed, stitched, hit, and otherwise mangled but survived it all.

I stand now in a dead girl's outfit, on a street corner downtown at 3 am with a backpack full of blood money and nightmares. Tonight I leave that all behind and start something new.

This time, no one's going to fuck with me.

END PART 2

(bonus: I made this one night out of boredom. It's the Album of the BatGirl.

Go to my user lookup and follow the url to my album.)


End file.
